The Launch of the Youtube Channel

I finished up my plan for the Youtube channel in Morro Bay, and I thought now would be a good time to show you what the plan is. So here for your amusement, is my introduction to From How to Why.

Introducing From How to Why

Welcome to From How to Why. From How to Why is a photography series created for intermediate level photographers, those of us who have mastered the basics, feel that our images can and should be better than they are, and are looking for help to take that next step forward.

When you’re new to photography, you have to study and learn the how’s of taking photographs. As you mature, to continue growing you have to shift from working about the how and focus on the why. You want to get more out of your camera. You want your images to be better, but you aren’t sure how to do it.

You think you’re a pretty good photographer, but pretty good isn’t good enough.

If you are an intermediate photographer trying to find that next level, we want to help. What’s that mean? You shoot raw, or have realized you probably need to start. You’ve moved beyond hitting the Auto button in Adobe Lightroom but you believe the images could be a lot better than you know how to make them. You’re comfortable with your camera in most situations, but you’re interested in mastering it.

From How to Why was created to assist you in taking that next step. Whether it’s in choosing your composition, your light, your camera settings or your post processing decisions, when you learn to think about what you want to accomplish and why you want to do that, you’ll come to realize that the how of making it happen will become more obvious and you’ll open yourself to images and ideas that simply aren’t possible when you approach them via the How.

This project is all about this change in thinking. We need to make some assumptions: we assume you understand the basics of photography: shutter speed, aperture, etc. We assume you understand how to operate your camera and can switch between manual and autofocus, or between different modes in your exposure system. Do you understand how to process an image in Lightroom?

These basic techniques are not hard to learn; we want to teach you why you want to use them, and when they should be used.

If you want me to give you my GPS location, camera settings and explain the time of day and what direction I pointed my camera, this is not the place for you. If you are more interested in the aperture and shutter speed than the subject and the composition this isn’t the place for you.

If you focus on the how of doing things instead of the why, you will be disappointed in this place.

This doesn’t mean the how of an image doesn’t matter: it does. We’ll talk about settings, how you take an image needs to be driven from the ideas behind why you are taking it and what you want to accomplish after you press the shutter.

What you’ll find here at From How to Why

If you subscribe to From How to Why, here is what you can expect to find:

From How to Why: Digital Darkroom

Once a week we are going to walk you through processing an image from the raw file that comes out of the camera to the final image that’s ready to be used. This will focus on why we’re making changes to it and what we want to accomplish with those changes.

When we come back from shooting trips, we will work through evaluating and culling the images, going from the images on the memory card to the final set and others get stuck in the archive or tossed into the bit bucket. This will also show how we organize and store, the metadata we use, and why those things are important to our ability to use these images later.

We will primarily be working in Lightroom CC Classic, but you will also see us process images in Luminar, in OnOwe, and in the new mobile Lightroom CC, including processing an image in a head to head comparison so you can see how the processing image affects your final image and when it makes sense to use one instead of another.

From How to Why: In the field

When it’s time to go on a shoot, we’re going to talk about what it takes to make it successful: when we plan a shoot we need to think about why we’re going and what we need to do, when we choose the gear to go with us we need to understand why it will help us accomplish our goals.

You can go to a random place at a random time and press the shutter and get good images; if you understand what you want to accomplish and why you want those images, you raise the chances of coming back with good images reliably.l

From How to Why: Places

Places are occasional documentaries about our shooting locations, why we went there, what makes them special, and what we brought back from them; told through the images made possible by those locations.

From How to Why: Things

Sometimes we’re going to talk about things: maybe a piece of gear, a tool, a technique, a concept, an idea. The goal is always to talk about why these things can help you solve a problem or accomplish a goal, though, not about the thing as a thing.

From How to why: Opinions

And… Believe it or not, once in a while we have an opinion about something, and we’re going to share it with you.

Behind From How to Why

Who is behind this?

I’m Chuq Von Rospach, a Silicon Valley based photographer and long-time veteran of the high tech industry. I’ve been using Lightroom since version three, taught it to birdwatching groups and now I’m doing this series of videos to help make your life easier and your photos look better as you use Lightroom in your day to day photography.

You can find my on twitter at @chuq and find my writing and photography at https://www.chuqui.com. Feel free to leave comments on this video with your thoughts and questions and I’ll try to respond to what I can in future videos.

Staying in touch

So that’s From How to Why. If this interests you I encourage you to stay in touch so you don’t miss any release in the series. You can do that by subscribing to the Youtube channel.

If you’re interested in all of the things I publish, I suggest you subscribe to my newsletter, 6fps. It comes out about once a month and includes links to all the material I’ve publishes including From How to Why, plus original material like wallpapers based on the images you see processed in the series, a monthly opinion piece and other secrets and surprises you’ll need to subscribe to see

(When does this launch? We’ll chat more about that next)

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6FPS is the way to stay in touch and subscribe to 6FPS. Coming out about twice a month, it's the only way to keep up with all that I'm doing on the various services across the network.

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